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Shadowforger
The Shadowforger, born as Natasha Dæmondöttr, Exalted as Eternal Scion of Vindication, and also known as the Void of Creation and Death of the Endless, is a Dawn Solar currently serving as a Herald of Harbinger in Creation Zero-One-Four. Appearing through what appeared to be a rift in the fabric of space-time, she has since engaged the heroes clustered in and around what would be the Arena if they were in the Prime, apparently in an effort to kill them, though the recent arrival of Master 1 and his subsequent decree of protection appears to have halted her true aims. For a list of all the times she has appeared in Forum Fight, as well as her actions on each of those occasions, see this document. History Born, as her name suggests, as the offspring of a union between a dæmon and another being (in her case, her father was a Sidereal Exalted--a Chosen of Battles--and her mother was a succubus) almost five centuries ago in Creation Zero-Zero-Eight, Natasha was originally supposed to Exalt as a Sidereal, and as such was trained to handle her role of assisting in the managing of the cosmos from an early age by her father and older sister'**'. Much of her training is obviously a secret of the Sidereal Exalted, but some records exist showing that while she was considered a 'natural' knife-fighter and martial artist, her swordsmanship as a whole was only deemed 'adequate'. However, her intended destiny shattered--to use official Sidereal terminology--when she encountered the being then known only as the Unconquered Sun (who would later turn out to be the 0th-level Absolute Resplendent Harbinger of Ascension,' '''progenitor of the Solar Exalted). The exact timing and nature of their meeting is unknown, since shortly after Natasha vanished from known space, but obviously Harbinger must have seen her potential, as rather than killing her or letting her return to her life and eventual Sidereal Exaltation, he instead Exalted her under the name '''Eternal Scion of Vindication' as one of the earliest-known Solar Exalted, and specifically as a member of the Dawn caste. For a period of almost a hundred years following her Exaltation, she disappeared, but abruptly returned to Harbinger's service as one of his Heralds during the initial invasion of Creation Zero-Zero-One (from which Harbinger and his chief lieutenant, Perfect Vanguard of Sovereign, launched their attempted conquest of the Prime), displaying a unique set of abilities involving a mixture of her Exaltation and what appears to be called Shadowforging, given that she is recorded as naming herself on numerous occasions as the Shadowforger. The Cross-Creation War ended in Harbinger's defeat and subsequent ejection from the Prime, and, afterward, with Sovereign nowhere to be found, Natasha took over as the Death of the Endless (the unique rank assigned previously to Sovereign as the second-in-command of Harbinger's forces), a position she still held almost three centuries later upon her entry to Creation Zero-One-Four. As part of her work as Death of the Endless and a Herald of Harbinger, she was dubbed the Void of Creation following her destruction of the Zahtara Galactic Cluster in Creation Zero-One-Three through the use of Shadowforging, somehow consuming the entire cluster in darkness and erasing it from existence; though she appeared to do it by simply waving a hand, it is known that she spent almost twenty years planning and orchestrating the events leading up to that day. She is also confirmed to have three hundred and sixty-four God-level kills, two hundred and nine Avatar-level kills, fifty-six Master-level kills and two Lord-level kills, though she managed the last two only when her targets were severely weakened by previous combat with each other. **'''Though her birth-name is lost, it is known that her older sister later Exalted as '''Perfect Vanguard of Sovereign, first amongst the Heralds and the original Solar Exalted, and who was defeated in combat by members of the FFA, though rumours abound that a splinter of her personality somehow survived her body's physical destruction. Powers Shadowforging Shadowforging is Natasha's primary specialization and method of combat, and appears to revolve around the manipulation of shadows and darkness. However, detailed analysis has revealed that the term 'shadowforging' is actually a misnomer, albeit a poetic one. Rather than manipulating shadows, she is actually manipulating a mixture of three things - the Nether, an arcane form of dark energy, and an variation of what would be colloqiually known as 'negative energy', all of which manifest themselves on the Material Plane to those capable of seeing them as something very close to the shadows and darkness for which shadowforging is named. So far, she has displayed the ability to create shadowforged--incorporeal manifestations of the fabric of the Nether armed with blades of solidified negative energy-- generate and launch both dark and negative energy in the form of projectiles, including the pseudo-mirroring, or 'shadowing', of those launched by others, and condense the same into various forms of weaponry and a physical shield. She is also capable of simulating teleportation by stepping in and out of the Nether (and possibly Shadesmar, though this will be discussed later), as well as pulling the fabric of the Nether around her--or pulling herself into it-- as a defensive mechanism to 'step' out of the way of incoming attacks. Beyond this, she is theorized to be able to turn a forged reflection (a construct comprised of a combination of the fabric of the Nether, dark energy, and negative energy to be the shadow of something else) into a true mirror (an identical version of that object), though this ability has never been seen in action, and the method by which she would be able to accomplish this is as yet unknown. It is suspected that her true forging capabilities are limited only by her imagination and what it is theoretically possible to accomplish through the manipulation of the aforementioned three substances. She harnesses and controls this particular element of her powers through her fingers, and specifically those on her left hand--which, unknown to most, is in fact her dominant hand--which, for reasons that will be explained when her armour is discussed in depth, she needs to bare before starting to forge. This particular weakness was exploited by Faron, a descendant of Wayne, who managed to temporarily gain sufficient advantage over her in a swordfight to cut off both her hands, thus forcing her to retreat from that particular engagement as she was both unable to properly fend him off with either magic or melee. Contrary to popular belief, Natasha's saa (the inky-black flecks of darkness that writhe as if alive under her skin) have no direct relation to shadowforging, and are instead manifestations of her Exaltation, though they are associated with how she controls the energy she uses to shadowforge. Exaltation of the Unconquered Sun As a Solar Exalted, Natasha has deific-level strength, speed, endurance, physical resilience and rate of mental cognition, as the process of Exaltation exposes the Solar to the vast, terrifying power in Harbinger's soul and imbues an infinitesimal fraction of it in their body. Another side effect of her Exaltation--unique to the Exaltation of the Unconquered Sun--is that her blood, thanks to the sheer amount of energy coursing through her at any one time, has been converted to condensed, liquified sunlight; if cut, she bleeds what stars would be like if they were somehow made of liquid instead of gas and plasma. Furthermore, as part of her Exaltation, she is capable of drawing on the power of the Unconquered Sun (i.e. Harbinger) and channeling it through her body to provide brief-but-massive boosts to her own power, which manifests itself physically in her eyes--which turn gold, as if they have been replaced by expanding supernovae--and the way her saa almost seem to burst out from under her skin. This power takes the form of positive, Absolute-class energy, which in most cases is able to be used to accomplish any given task the Solar is attempting. However, as mentioned in the description of Shadowforging, which is what Natasha mainly uses her Exaltation to augment, it relies on manipulating the Nether, dark energy, and negative energy: such an influx would seem entirely useless and in fact completely counterproductive, as she would be channeling positive energy and attempting to use it to manipulate its opposites. And yet, clearly it is not, as Natasha has been shown using her Exaltation to fuel enhanced shadowforging. While the exact method by which she accomplishes this is unknown, it is theorized that it relies on the unique nature of the energy she forges with, as well as the nature of the Nether itself and the theoretical negative energy demiplane of Shadesmar, and is best summarized by the phrase "the brightest lights cast the deepest shadows". In brief, the ridiculous amount of positive energy concentrated in one place through channeling the Unconquered Sun casts a 'shadow' of dark and negative energy exactly equal to it in magnitude (due to the Balance of all things, and the fact that the Nether is a dark mirror of the Material Plane, whereas Shadesmar is theorized to be a negative mirror) that Natasha can then call upon to actually shadowforge with. The frightening thing about this, however, is that, strictly speaking, she doesn't use the power granted to her by her Exaltation itself, only its shadow - which means she still has all the fury of the Unconquered Sun at her disposal even once she's finished Shadowforging. She is also capable of using her Exaltation to perform limited healing; she can channel the heat and positive light energy constantly in motion throughout her body and soul--ironic, considering her main form of offence is based on the opposite--to close over and seal wounds by searing them shut with pseudo-divine energy by directing it through her fingers (a weakness fittingly shared by her Shadowforging). The process is known to be painful, based on the testimonies of those who have been healed by other Solars using this ability, though she seems to be used to the pain to the degree that she appears to simply ignore it. It is unknown if she is capable of healing broken bones or other such wounds that do not draw blood. It is also presumed that she has access to all the other abilities of a Solar Exalted, and merely chooses to use her shadowforging capabilities instead. ''Saa'' Strictly speaking, the saa are not a power unto themselves, but rather the physical manifestation of the unique combination of her Shadowforging and Solar Exaltation. Localized fragments of the Nether and dark matter (or, at least, its arcane equivalent), they act as both conduits of the energy she uses to shadowforge and its containment field, trapping the power within her body and preventing it from spilling out; this serves the dual purpose of both maximizing the efficiency of her shadowforging and preventing any outside force from actually detecting her actually using her powers--or her presence in general--unless she has a direct effect on a part of reality they are capable of observing. Furthermore, they also prevent an outside force from predicting what she is attempting to forge at any one time, as unless she is using her Exaltation--at which point they have greater things to worry about than predicting what she's attempting to forge--there is no observable difference between, say, creating a shadowforged and spraying an opponent with shadow-needles; while, technically speaking, it would be be possible to tell by what her fingers are doing, shadowforging is unique to Natasha alone, and multiple observers have noted that it seems to less revolve around any unique finger-movements and more just the general fact that her fingers are moving, though most of the time she seems to favour specific mnemonics for different forgings. When channeling her Exaltation, or performing a forging of great power--though the two are usually synonymous--her saa grow deeper in colour (or, strictly speaking, lack of colour), become larger, and move around more violently under her skin, sometimes seeming to almost be attempting to burst their way out, as they must contain and conduct a much larger amount of energy than in a usual forging. Shadesmar Shadesmar is not so much a power as a theoretical location: it is the name of the theorized demi-plane comprised entirely of negative energy that runs parallel to the Material Plane and which mirrors it perfectly (save for the obvious fact that everything inside it is made up of negative energy). While none have conclusively proven it to exist--mostly because any who attempt to venture there do not come back--nonetheless the 'Shadesmar hypothesis' is well-regarded amongst planar scholars, since the basic rules of Creation imply its existence. Assuming it exists, it is obvious that Natasha would have a deep connection to it, given that shadowforging relies on, amongst other things, manipulating negative energy: it would be the perfect source of power for that element of her forging. Furthermore, she is documented on several separate occasions as having bypassed defences that she would have been unable to if she was using the Nether to cloak herself from view on the Material Plane (or to shadow-jaunt); the least complex explanation for this, and thus the most likely via Occam's Razor, is that she is using Shadesmar instead. 'N.B. Any term, series of terms, reference or basically anything here that recognizably belongs to someone else obviously does so; this is intended as a work of pseudo-fanfiction unified with a constantly-expanding multiple-author original universe. '